Bitter? No. Coaxed you sweeten but do not cloy. Do not
Impose an idea of a pear on the pear ask when is a pear a pear?
‘Russet-flecked green’ shows color. ‘Shaped like my aunt’ shows—
No. My aunt is shaped like a pear (fruit came first) but how
Else to say ‘shaped like a pear’? Bulky ballooning bottom?
Narrow rounded top? A chartreuse teardrop? Forget shape.
Mark words : Poire, Birne, Pera. Pere, Pirum, Peru—not Peru.
Argentina the country from which you came. Try names :
Comice, Forelle, Anjou. Bosc, Seckel, Packham. Confused?
How to write about a fruit with five thousand hues : ancient,
Enter its DNA, see time unwind; don’t let the odd-sounding
Names put you off. Pear equals pear, this one lumpy—marbles,
Squeezed under thin skin, embedded in flesh—it took steroids
Perhaps to intimidate smaller pears. Or maybe planters sprayed
Aldrin to kill worms—tumors bubble up in the body, underside
Shrinks, yellows. Maybe Argentinian pears are just pumped.
Subtle pear, come out of the shadows. I know you are alone.
Zero though a sign you only approach in declivitous ellipses.
Unpaired this pear reminds me of first love how he fed supple
Meat let juice run down chin onto chest. I sucked clean sticky
Ends, ground a gritty stone cell as we ate our yellow Bartlett.
So I wrote a poem about this, called it ‘Genesis’ left Milton’s
Serpent but changed his apple to a pear (pears are juicier) ate,
Exposed wet teeth marks like Adam’s next to my wide bite.
Nibbled down to the core we discarded the heart of the pome.
